HARD BY A GREAT FOREST

AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST FOR 2024 SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 2024 A spellbinding achievement FINANCIAL TIMES Poignant and often painfully comic OBSERVER I gasped laughed and wept my way through it KHALED HOSSEINI Hugely impressive NEW EUROPEAN Novels like this might help light the way GUARDIAN At once a puzzle hunt and an affecting meditation on exile ECONOMIST Tbilisi s littered with memories that await me like landmines The dearly departed voices I silenced long ago have come back without my permission The situation calls for someone with a plan I didn t even bring toothpaste Saba s father is missing and the trail leads back to Tbilisi Georgia It s been two decades since Irakli fled his war torn homeland with two young sons now grown men Two decades since he saw their mother who stayed so they could escape At long last Tbilisi has lured him home But when Irakli s phone calls stop a mystery begins Arriving in the city as escaped zoo animals prowl the streets Saba picks up the trail of clues strange graffiti bewildering messages transmitted through the radio pages from his father s unpublished manuscript scattered like breadcrumbs As the voices of those left behind pull at the edges of his w